The season numbers aren’t great but we’ve picked up some steam over the last few weeks and hopefully will finish strong. As always, if you have any suggestions or tips, please feel free to mention them in the comments section, and thank you for reading.

Here’s how we’re doing so far this season (through half of Week 16)

27-29 record
4.81 ERA
7.6 K/9
2.3 K/BB
1.46 WHIP
31 quality starts

Here are this week’s recs (with team wRC+ for this season in parentheses):

RHP JC Ramirez – 19.5% ESPN – v. BAL (95), @SEA (101)

I just can’t quit a guy who throws this hard and at least seems to have pretty great stuff. Ramirez routinely sits in the mid- to upper-90s with his fastball (technically a sinker), and is heavily reliant on his slider (32.9 percent) with a curve (16.8 percent) as well. The slider comes in at 88 mph on average, which is pretty stellar velo for a secondary pitch. He gets plenty of grounders, but I’d really like to see more strikeouts from a guy with this raw stuff. The slider has potential (16 percent whiff rate), but the curve doesn’t do much for me (8.2 percent this year, mirroring his career rate). As far as matchups go….meh. It’s not like he’s facing the Phillies or Padres, but as long as we can stay away from the Yankees, Astros or Dodgers it’s not too worrisome, either. Read the rest of this entry »

Launch angle continues to trouble me. It might trouble many of you as well, I don’t know. I’ve done a lot of research into which launch angles are the most valuable (10-26), most repeatable (<0 and >26), most common (-10 to 10), and which have the greatest exit velocity (-10 to 20).  These are round numbers, and each batter many differ with regards to their personal swing path or pitch selection.

Even with all of this, launch angle troubles me. Especially when I hear people quoting average launch angle.

In a lot of ways, average launch angle might be similar to average pitch velocity. If a pitcher throws 10% breaking balls and 90% fastballs his average velocity would be significantly higher than if he threw 90% breaking balls and 10% fastballs. Alright, 90% breaking balls is extreme, but you get my point. Maybe it is better to look at the velocity of each pitch independently: the guy has a 95mph fastball and an 84 mph curveball. That gives us a lot more information than saying he has an average velocity of, say, 91.

You have the same sort of problem when you quote average launch angle. Is the guy only hitting the ball to extremes? Maybe he only hits ground balls and pop ups, that would give you the same launch angle as a guy who only hit line drives or a guy who hit a perfectly balanced mix of ground balls, line drives, and fly balls. Using the average feels inherently wrong to me, but I haven’t been able to identify a better way to easily sum up this information. Read the rest of this entry »

As I threatened, today’s column is actually being written on Wednesday night. As such, many of my normal resources – i.e. SaberSim and stadium specific weather reports – are not yet available. Also, things can happen tonight that may result in a certain obsolescence to this content tomorrow. I’ll just cross my fingers.

Second also, even though this appears to be the second paragraph, I’m writing this last. Consider it a premature conclusion (there’s a pill for that). It seems my “style” is particularly unhinged when working at night. I usually only write fiction at night. I apologize. Or not. Piss off already. Go read the words about the players.

AGENDA

1. Announcement for the Intention of the Utilization of New Approaches Hitherto Unapproached
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse

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In my previous article, I created an approach to examine pitcher strengths of schedule by aggregating the hit frequency projections of the hitters they faced. So, for example, Dee Gordon was projected to hit 0.229 singles, 0.032 doubles, 0.015 triples, etc. against right-handed pitchers when he faced Stephen Strasburg in the first plate appearance of the season. By adding together all of those fractional singles, doubles, and other possible results, I was able to calculate an expected wOBA for pitchers based on the quality of the batters they faced.

If you think of the differences in expected wOBA as schedule luck, then that initial research suggested that the difference between the luckiest and unluckiest pitcher so far in 2017 was pretty small. The former was Patrick Corbin, whose batters faced combined for a .324 projected wOBA against left-handed pitchers. The latter was Ricky Nolasco, whose batters faced combined for a .337 projected wOBA against right-handed pitchers. That difference of 13 points of wOBA is the same as the difference between Kyle Seager and James Loney. It’s something, but it isn’t huge.

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A week ago, I discussed some of the surprising and notable names atop the American League starting pitcher last 30 day strikeout rate leaderboard. Today, let’s check in on those pitchers that find themselves at the bottom.

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Last Saturday, Jim Johnson blew his eighth save of the season, and apparently Brian Snitker had seen enough. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Johnson was being dropped as the Braves’ primary closer and, going forward, he would “mix and match” in save situations. On Wednesday night, Snitker had his first opportunity to pick a closer since demoting Johnson, and not surprisingly, he went to Arodys Vizcaino. After all, Vizcaino has been Snitker’s favored eighth-inning option and had successfully served as the Braves’ closer for part of 2016, collecting 10 saves.

Johnson is presumably still a candidate to close on occasion, and Jose Ramirez and Rex Brothers could be part of that mix as well, though the latter reliever has struggled in his recent forays in the late innings. Vizcaino has had no problems getting whiffs, posting a 14.9 percent swinging strike rate entering Wednesday, and while he does not have the best control of the closer candidates, he has been the best at getting chases on pitches outside of the strike zone. He successfully closed out the Dodgers on Wednesday, and he appears poised to take over the job. Among all of the relievers who have recently ascended to the closer’s role, only Brad Hand has a more enviable skill set, and Vizcaino is much more widely available.
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8/2/17

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 18, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER18!

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Leading Off: Question of the Day (5:00)

• Favorite prospect the rest of the way: Amed Rosario, Ozzie Albies, or Rafael Devers 

Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles/Game Play 

• Yu Darvish to LAD (14:09)
• Sonny Gray to NYY (19:59)

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Last year around this time I took a look at the Steamer600 Update projections to try to identify potential keepers that were currently undervalued or overlooked. As a refresher, the Steamer600 Update projections represent the current Steamer rest of season projections, but scaled to 600 PA/200 IP (SP)/ 65 IP (RP) for all players. I like to look at these projections periodically to get a sense of how Steamer is estimating true talent level regardless of playing time (due to injury, a bench role, or being in the minor leagues). I have taken those Steamer600 Update projections and applied ottoneu FGPTs scoring to find some interesting potential keepers.

Before I go any further, I thought it would make sense to highlight a few of the names I mentioned in last year’s article(these are the hits, there were many misses as well):

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If you thought to pony up for one or more of Max Scherzer, Chris Sale, or Carlos Carrasco, sorry for ya. The trio combined for 7.2 innings and 12 runs. That’s not what you want to see from a $13,000 investment.

AGENDA

1. Another Programming Note
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. TDG Invitational Returns!

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It’s a good time to need roster help as seemingly every day there’s a new player that falls into an every day job. Here are two of the most recent.

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